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Habit of the Month – November

Now, I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t describe my average weekday morning as my most relaxing time (or my weekends actually, given the fact that the first hour of being awake is mostly spent trying to hide under the duvet and telling my children to go and play). What with getting ready for work, getting the children ready for school/nursery, packing up my food for the day and sometimes working out, that hour between 6.30 – 7.30am is usually pretty fraught.

I usually try and make this run as smoothly as possible – making breakfast and lunch the night before so they’re ready to pop in my cool bag, getting the girls’ bags packed etc. But a couple of weeks ago I found myself standing in front of my wardrobe for ages, totally unable to make a decision on what to wear for the day. I tried something on, it didn’t feel right, the rejected clothes piled up on the bed and I was left feeling frazzled, with a heap of things to put away again (more time wasted), plus a load of additional things for the ironing pile that were more creased that I’d remember when I’d put them away the last time.

My habit for November is to decide what I’m wearing the night before and lay it out for the morning. In the olden days, when I had the chance to exercise after I’d driven to the office, I was pretty good at this as I used to pack up my gym bag the night before most of the time. But I’ve sadly fallen out of the habit, and this is a bad thing.

Not only will laying out my outfit the night before save time in the morning, it will also mean that I pick up on any potential issues (top needs ironing, particular bra required is in the wash etc) the night before and can do the necessary to make sure that I’m ready to go first thing.

By the way, I’m also going to do this for the girls, or rather help them to do it. Not so difficult for Daisy who wears school uniform Mon-Friday, more problematic for Poppy. Despite having a drawer of clothes for nursery (those in dark colours that I don’t mind getting muddy/spaghetti stained/painted on), we often have a performance in the morning. She has a unique sartorial style and is prone to bold outfit choices (see below – it’s the socks with jellies that particularly set this one off). I am cool with this, as I honestly couldn’t give a monkeys (I am sure she’ll grow out of it, Daisy did), but I cannot tolerate the morning faffing, so will be helping her to choose her mismatched outfit (and accessories!) the evening before. Now, just to persuade her that big girls get dressed all by themselves….